The Ettenmoors were the land of the stall, and Shragat was sick of it. The constant, grating presence of mud and mediocrity wasn't misery—it was an insult to his superior intellect. He was an Orc of the Misty Mountains, and while his kin prized damp, dark security, Shragat saw the mountains as a resource, not just a hiding place. He was wasted here, standing guard over supply wagons that hauled nothing more valuable than thin porridge and moldy straw.
His current captain, Grudluk, was a problem. Grudluk was a brute, yes, but he was a calculating one. He demanded impossible discipline and never wasted a word or a punch, yet Shragat had noticed that whenever a soldier was injured, Grudluk would put him on latrine duty—a task that looked like punishment but was the warmest, driest duty in the camp. Grudluk was a shield; he kept the troops busy, alive, and facing the enemy, even if he hid his care beneath a wall of harsh discipline.
Shragat didn't need a shield. He needed an opportunity.
He stood by the main firepit, observing the camp's pathetic inefficiency. Nearby, Kafzagtith, a wide, squat Orc whose mind was apparently made of wet peat moss, was attempting to sharpen a spoon with a grindstone.
"Kafzagtith, what are you doing?" Shragat asked, suppressing a sigh.
Kafzagtith paused, blinking his small, dull eyes. "Sharpenin' the spoon. Captain Grudluk said we gotta be ready for eatin’ time."
"He meant you must prepare the food," Shragat corrected, using exaggerated hand gestures. "The spoon is for the mouth. The knife is for the chopping. This," Shragat pointed to the spoon, "is not a dagger."
"But it's dull, Shragat," Kafzagtith insisted earnestly, holding up the bent utensil. "And Grudluk says we can't be dullards. So I sharpen the spoon."
Tradul, the loyal one, stepped in, hefting his perfectly maintained, if rusty, spear. "The Captain didn't mean the spoon, Kafz. He meant you gotta be sharp. Like me." Tradul puffed out his chest, looking proud. He was loyal and dull in a competent way—the perfect soldier for Grudluk, a creature who needed simple, executable commands.
Shragat scoffed, turning back to the dreary, mist-shrouded northern hills. "You're all sharp enough for this bog. I'm sharp for greater things."
"The Captain says the greatest thing is holdin' this line!" Tradul said, offended.
Shragat merely smiled, a cold, predatory grimace that didn't reach his eyes. "The Captain is comfortable here. I am not. This entire war effort is a disorganized mess run by Orcs who can't tell a spoon from a spear. My talent is wasted as a glorified latrine cleaner. I know the high passes of the Misty Mountains. I know how to find the rich veins, the unguarded stores. I deserve a forge, a retinue, and proper coin, not Grudluk’s stern paternalism."
Shragat had spent the last week staring at the northern horizon. In the distance, the faint, massive, jagged silhouette of the Misty Mountains—his home—was visible through the haze. He had been taken from a deep, hidden tunnel network near the high passes, yanked out of the relative peace of the orc colony there and marched south by a terrifying patrol he dared not disobey. He missed the smell of wet rock, the deep, echoing silence broken only by the drip of subterranean water, and the dark security of walls that pressed close and offered comfort, not exposure. But Shragat wasn’t just driven by his urge for homecoming, he was running to a new life where his cleverness would finally pay dividends.
The opportunity presented itself that very evening during the patrol shift. Grudluk himself, clad in heavy, damp chainmail, watched the perimeter movements with the intensity of a starving wolf.
"Shragat! Your turn for the North Post," Grudluk barked. His voice was raw, strained from overuse. "Keep your hood up. It's colder than a Dwarf's heart out there. If I see you standing still for a second, I’ll strip you and leave you for the crows, you hear me?"
Shragat nodded respectfully. "Understood, Captain."
The Captain’s usual procedure for the coldest posts was to make sure the Orcs rotated rapidly and kept moving—a harsh order designed to prevent hypothermia. Shragat noted the hidden care, but dismissed it. Grudluk’s care was for the unit; Shragat's was for himself.
He marched out, his mind a steel trap of logistics. He had spent weeks gathering specific items: not just his hunting knife and waterskin, but a small, heavy pouch of dried, nutrient-dense fungus, a superior length of mountaineering rope filched from a supply crate, a dented helmet, and, most importantly, a small, highly reflective shard of obsidian he'd polished—a useful signaling or navigational tool in the dark. He left the camp’s standard gear behind; it was too recognizable and too bulky for the speed he planned to make.
He reached the North Post, a rickety wooden tower overlooking the marshy scrubland. Instead of patrolling, he did the most cunning thing he could: he fashioned a quick dummy out of canvas and sticks, propped it up in the deepest shadow of the tower, and covered its head with his standard-issue cowl. It was crude, but in the constant gloom and mist, it would fool a passing glance for hours.
Shragat then moved on his belly past the outer sentry post, where the air was thick with the scent of stale ale and the sound of Kafzagtith's impossibly loud snoring. Grudluk's tent was a distant, dark hump. Then he slipped down the far side of the embankment, no longer crawling on his belly, but moving with the easy, controlled speed of a hunter. Shragat had already performed another masterstroke of cunning that afternoon: he had reported his heavy war-axe stolen, carefully planting it near the main latrine, knowing Grudluk would launch a fruitless search rather than risk enemy possession of a decent weapon. This ensured maximum distraction when he slipped out. He felt a thrill of pure triumph. This was a demonstration of competence. Grudluk wouldn't just see a deserter; he'd see a clever mind that had outmatched him. A loss for the Captain, a promotion for me.
He moved like a shadow through the low, marshy ground, the dark mass of the mountains pulling him like a magnet.
He gained elevation quickly, covering thirty miles before the dawn broke—a monumental feat of endurance. He was fuelled by his belief that he was exceptional.
For the first day and night, the journey was grueling but triumphant. He avoided the main tracks, traversing rough country—scree, thickets of thorny scrub, and small, unnamed rivers. He kept the great, looming mass of the Misty Mountains ahead of him, a dark, growing promise on the horizon. He imagined the shift in atmosphere as he approached the high peaks—the air would thin, the ground would turn to pure rock, and the entrances to the deep ways would appear like welcoming shadows.
But the mountains held their own malice.
On the second morning, the wind changed. It came roaring from the northeast, not a chill breeze but a living, screaming entity. It brought with it a sky the color of lead, and before noon, the first flakes began to fall.
At first, it was merely an inconvenience, a dusting that whitened the stones and obscured the path. Shragat pulled his cowl tighter and adjusted his helmet. He was used to snow; he was a Mountain Orc. But this snow was different. It was frantic, driven by a gale that shrieked and tore at his clothing, clawing away the precious heat from his body.
Within an hour, the world was gone.
Visibility dropped to near zero. He could no longer see the mountain ridge, nor the ground ten paces ahead. The wind howled a continuous, deafening wall of sound, and the snow was so dense, so sharp, it felt less like falling water and more like being beaten with a million needles of ice.
Shragat pushed on, head down, relying on the memory of the ground beneath his feet. He knew he had to gain elevation before the snow settled and buried him, but every step was a battle. He tripped over a hidden outcrop of rock, scrambling to catch his balance. He lost his grip on his waterskin. He had to stop, scrabble blindly in the deepening drifts, and retrieve it. The few minutes he spent searching cost him dearly; the cold invaded his leather gloves, making his fingers stiff and useless.
The panic started as a small, tight constriction in his chest. Where am I? The terrain had become impossible to read. The snow muffled his footsteps, making him feel terribly alone in the white chaos. He was no longer walking; he was lurching, stumbling, driven forward by a primal need to escape the camp, now tragically replaced by a primal need to escape the elements.
The memory of Grudluk, Kafzagtith, and Tradul faded; the cruelty of the Witch-king’s war was a child's tantrum compared to the mountainous, geological spite of the storm.
He tried to keep his momentum, leaning into the wind, but the exhaustion was immense. His Orc-blood, hot and durable, was fighting a losing battle against the penetrating, wet cold. He found himself thinking, It is better to stand and face the cold than to fall and let it chew me. But his muscles refused the command.
He stumbled again, this time hard. His dented helmet rolled off his head and disappeared immediately into a drift. He didn't even try to retrieve it. A wave of bone-deep fatigue washed over him, sweet and seductive.
He crawled for a few more feet, finding a small, shallow indentation beneath a wind-scoured boulder. It offered perhaps a foot of vertical relief from the gale, but it was nothing more than a grave waiting to be filled.
Shragat collapsed, his legs and arms utterly unresponsive. His breath misted instantly, clinging to his face in icy patches. He tried to think of his home—the narrow, high passage that led to the Grash-Bûrz (the Hidden Vault) where he used to sleep—but the images were hazy, overlaid with the blinding white of the storm.
I am nothing, he thought, the truth settling in with the same crushing finality as the snow. A deserter, dead in the high waste.
His eyelids felt heavy, glued shut with ice. The howling of the wind began to sound like distant voices, the jeering of Grudluk and the dull laughter of Kafzagtith and Tradul. He imagined them warm by the fire, mocking his ambition.
He closed his eyes, welcoming the darkness and the quiet that promised to follow the storm's roar.
He was already sinking into that deep, painless sleep when a sound, alien and sharp, cut through the wind's symphony.
It wasn't a voice from his memory, nor the wind itself. It was the heavy, rhythmic crunch of something solid and massive moving through the deep snow, coming from the direction of the worst part of the storm.
Shragat managed to peel one eye open. The world was still a smear of white and grey, but a shape was resolving itself near the mouth of his miserable shelter.
It was impossibly tall.
It was not a Man, and certainly not a beast of the mountains, for its gait was too deliberate, too knowing. It was heavily clad in dark, thick pelts and furs that seemed to shrug off the snow. It was a silhouette, a great dark pillar against the backdrop of white ruin.
Then the shape lowered its head, and Shragat saw the eyes. They were large, yellow, and glowed with a feral, unsettling intelligence, cutting through the swirling snow like lamps in a cave.
The scent hit him next, a pungent mix of Orc-funk, leather, and something wilder, like ancient moss and wolf-pelt. It was an Orc, yes, but a breed Shragat had only heard whispered about in the lowest levels of the deep ways—the mountain-folk, those who lived entirely on the heights, unaffected by the power struggles below. This was a creature in its element.
The large shape raised a massive, gloved hand. The glove itself was made of coarse, dark hide, and its grip, when it clamped down on Shragat's shoulder, was like an iron vise.
Shragat tried to fight back, a useless, pathetic twitch of his arm. He expected the traditional greeting: a beating, a curse, perhaps the final slash of a knife. He tried to croak out a plea or a defiance—he couldn't tell which—but only a rattling gasp came out.
The Orc made a deep, rasping sound, a guttural noise that vibrated in Shragat's chest. It was not a question, nor a curse, but a command, low and hard as granite.
"Up. Move, weakling. The mountain does not wait for a coward to freeze."
The power in the hand was irresistible. Shragat was hauled, unceremoniously, out of the snow-filled hollow. He swayed, his legs buckling. The new Orc did not release him. Instead, he twisted his grip, hooking his arm under Shragat's heavy armpit and hoisting his frozen body against his own thickly-furred side, pulling him into the shelter of his towering frame.
Shragat's last coherent thought, as he felt the jarring motion of being dragged further into the blizzard, was a dizzying realization: his rescuer, this creature of the high, unforgiving peaks, was taking him up. Away from the relative shelter of the lower Ettenmoors, and straight into the terrifying, magnificent heart of the storm. He was saved from the war, but now he was entirely at the mercy of the mountains and the mysterious Orc who claimed them.
He shut his eyes again, the cold now less painful because he was moving, forced to live by a power greater than his own failing will. He could hear the crunch of their heavy, snow-proofed boots, two sets of heartbeats in the raging white. He was alive, but his journey home had just begun a dark, terrifying, and profoundly different path.
